How is Enhancement DPS now and how do you think it will be in MoP?

I have played every single class besides shaman and all I can say is "I wish I started playing one years ago". It's hard to believe Enhancement isn't topping DPS charts. (From a leveling up point of view as Enhancement).
I really hope Enhancement for MoP will be rocking. I really want to be a rebel and go for Enhancement for PVP and PVE because it's just oh so satisfying.

The question is.. Is the DPS of Enhancement pretty bad right now and if it's not to early to tell how is DPS for enhancement for MoP going to look?

By design, Enh shamans have issues with scaling (haste is useless and crit is pretty meh), also the rotation tends to be very clunky. That said, this is probably the best time there ever was for enh shamans, because while dps is still middle of the pack towards low, the gap between the top dps classes and the bottom ones is pretty small. This is all mostly due to Nor'kaled. I should mention though that a lot of fights work against enh shamans, because of the lack of real burst cds and bloodlust also not being so good to us (due to the poor scaling with haste).

Who knows what MoP will bring. Hopefully we get a better rotation, I'm not so fond of the current one and I'd love a more streamlined one.

Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

Enhacement Shamans are in one of the best places right now they ever were.

We've finally gotten some aoe thats not mindboggling doubledotting from melee, and its capable of some realy solid numbers if we get the time to get it up and running.

We've got solid damage! We dont top the meters, but only 1 person does that. I myself raid in a 8/8 heroic 10man guild and i find myself anywhere from being the last to the 2nd on dps on most fights - Since our Rogue got Legendary theres no competition anymore

We're getting alot more utility in Mists of Pandaria and even a great cooldown in AScendance, that will increase our viability in pvp aswell!

Syning, i think this is a great time to fall in love with Enhacement for we are without a doubt the ugly duckling that's now growing to become a lovely swan :P

Thanks for the replies. I really did fall in love with Enhancement while leveling. Didn't know Shamans were so fun. Looked fun back looking at them from a paladins view but never took the time to level one. Till now. lol.

Or wait until MoP lol. I have a feeling I might want to level a shaman again with the revamped cata experience, new talent trees, quest rewards and baseline abilities (plus bgs possibly not being so stupid with heirlooms).

Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

I think anyone who says Enhancement is in the best place its ever been is trying too hard to love the concept of balance. The truth is someone has to be at the low end and even the bottom of the meters even if the variance is small, and Enhancement is a bottom-half DPS spec right now, particularly in Dragon Soul. The mechanics generally are good, but in practice they don't earn us much. Improved Lava Lash is a liability in places.

We were better off at the end of Wrath when we did scale with haste and there was a lot of it to go around. In those days I was always top 5 and now I struggle for top 10 on most fights. In Wrath there wasn't a question of whether Enhance was viable for raiding, but in Dragon Soul you really have to prove why you're there and most of the fights don't make it easy.

I won't argue that the game overall isn't better now in terms of balance. When I say that I struggle for 10th, we're talking about having 5 players doing 6% of the damage, 5 players doing 6.0-5.8%, and 5 players doing 5.8%-5.5%. Incredibly small variance. Nevertheless, in Wrath we would have been in the first group and today we're in the last on most fights.

If we're in such a great spot right now, why don't competitive guilds use Enhancement very often (or at all)? Yes, I know that world 1st Korean guild had one in their madness kill; they brought one in to sploit Spellweaving on bloods with Flame Shock, which at the time was an important minmax technique. I would be amazed if that same guild took that shaman on Spine progression.

The point is that although small variance in numbers, which means good balancing, is a good thing for the game, it would be better for our spec if we were the ones who got a legendary quest, legendary weapons, and were the ones always topping the meters on virtually every fight. It's better to be #1 in a mostly even pack than #17. Someone's gotta be.

All that said, so far virtually every complaint I've had about the spec this expansion is being addressed in MoP; searing totem does suck, but we can replace it now with a controllable fire elemental which adds searing flames stacks, so if you take that 90 talent then you can control those stacks more effectively. Not only are we getting a DPS cooldown that I have high hopes for (Ascendency), we also get a small raid-wide DPS cooldown. If we had those two tools today, we wouldn't be sidelined for Spine by serious guilds.

Still no word on haste scaing though. If that is still broken in MoP we'll still probably be a bottom half DPS spec.

Right now our mana restore function is flat out broken. I haven't had the time to confirm this but it feels to me like we get no (or almost no) mana returned when attacking players. Since what I've seen of the beta right now has been nothing but world PvP in the Jade Forest and I go oom constantly and can't use any abilities, I haven't been playing much. I'm sure this is just a beta bug, but if it isn't, I'd call the spec unplayable in the state it's in.

I think anyone who says Enhancement is in the best place its ever been is trying too hard to love the concept of balance. The truth is someone has to be at the low end and even the bottom of the meters even if the variance is small, and Enhancement is a bottom-half DPS spec right now, particularly in Dragon Soul. The mechanics generally are good, but in practice they don't earn us much. Improved Lava Lash is a liability in places.

We were better off at the end of Wrath when we did scale with haste and there was a lot of it to go around. In those days I was always top 5 and now I struggle for top 10 on most fights. In Wrath there wasn't a question of whether Enhance was viable for raiding, but in Dragon Soul you really have to prove why you're there and most of the fights don't make it easy.

I won't argue that the game overall isn't better now in terms of balance. When I say that I struggle for 10th, we're talking about having 5 players doing 6% of the damage, 5 players doing 6.0-5.8%, and 5 players doing 5.8%-5.5%. Incredibly small variance. Nevertheless, in Wrath we would have been in the first group and today we're in the last on most fights.

If we're in such a great spot right now, why don't competitive guilds use Enhancement very often (or at all)? Yes, I know that world 1st Korean guild had one in their madness kill; they brought one in to sploit Spellweaving on bloods with Flame Shock, which at the time was an important minmax technique. I would be amazed if that same guild took that shaman on Spine progression.

The point is that although small variance in numbers, which means good balancing, is a good thing for the game, it would be better for our spec if we were the ones who got a legendary quest, legendary weapons, and were the ones always topping the meters on virtually every fight. It's better to be #1 in a mostly even pack than #17. Someone's gotta be.

All that said, so far virtually every complaint I've had about the spec this expansion is being addressed in MoP; searing totem does suck, but we can replace it now with a controllable fire elemental which adds searing flames stacks, so if you take that 90 talent then you can control those stacks more effectively. Not only are we getting a DPS cooldown that I have high hopes for (Ascendency), we also get a small raid-wide DPS cooldown. If we had those two tools today, we wouldn't be sidelined for Spine by serious guilds.

Still no word on haste scaing though. If that is still broken in MoP we'll still probably be a bottom half DPS spec.

Right now our mana restore function is flat out broken. I haven't had the time to confirm this but it feels to me like we get no (or almost no) mana returned when attacking players. Since what I've seen of the beta right now has been nothing but world PvP in the Jade Forest and I go oom constantly and can't use any abilities, I haven't been playing much. I'm sure this is just a beta bug, but if it isn't, I'd call the spec unplayable in the state it's in.

Either you were raiding in a 10man guild in Wrath (Explains you being top 5) or you're raiding in a much better guild now, explaining people being alot harder to outdps.

In Wrath the only ways Enhacement were topping meters were by padding those very same meters. I remember doing Lich King 25 Heroic. By the end of the first phase, i would by vastly in the lead beyond any competition. By then after P1 there were no Ghouls to pamper the meters on with Magma totem.

My point is, i fear you are commenting on how the spec is preforming, according to the way you preformed in Lich King and the way you are preforming now.

The only reason Enhancement is NOT brought to Spine Heroic on the first kills in the world is because Enhancement cannot control Lava Lash spreading Flameshocks and you need to minimize that passive aoe on the fight. We'll be able to do that properly in mists with a simple glyph.

With regards to top end guilds bringing Enhancement Shamans i'll have to say you're wrong.
First you say that "Yes the world first brought a Enhancement Shaman" And he topped the meters aswell! "But that was to exploit" WHAT?!?! Bringing a class thats good at utilizing a particular part of a fight is exploiting now?! Seriously! Do you hate your own spec that much?

Aoeing the blood when there isn't a corrupting parasite to spellweave down is padding the meters on heroic madness.

Overall dps is fine the issues that need addressing (and aren't being addressed at all in MoP) are:
Searing totem AI
Spirit wolf dps and behaviour (which is currently worse due to them becoming guardians, which also almost certainly means stat snapshotting)
Lack of burst cooldowns
Clunky, rampy aoe mechanics
Lack of scaling from haste - because we are cooldown not resource limited, haste doesn't mean we can 'do more stuff'

If I were a rogue / warrior / mage I would be able to contribute much more - if I'm honest the most useful thing about playing an enhancement shaman is that I have a resto offspec.

Utility wise Frost shock got ranged requirement root removed and Ghost wolf is still less hindered by snares in a glyph, lava lash doesnt spread FS through a glyph aswell. Ascendence helps kiting melee and getting close to ranged, all in a DPS CD, not to mention Capacitor(?) Totem, which gives a AOE stun and can be used alongside totemic projection for fun times :d

Wait, what? Wolves are becoming a guardian?!?!? Where are you coming from with this?
What I've heard (and it makes more sense) is that they finally found a way around a class having multiple pets, hence why the pet classes (lock, hunter, shaman) are all getting multiple pets out at once abilities.

On the whole ranting subject though, I'm really disapointed that they went completely out of their way to make the daggers viable for combat but purposedly decided to leave enh out. I don't think enh shamans will ever have a legendary, because it would mean yet another one for rogues, it's just one spec out of the multiple ones and there's the issue of favoring enh over ele (though that didn't prevent the staff from happening).

Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

Wait, what? Wolves are becoming a guardian?!?!? Where are you coming from with this?
What I've heard (and it makes more sense) is that they finally found a way around a class having multiple pets, hence why the pet classes (lock, hunter, shaman) are all getting multiple pets out at once abilities.

I dont know if they HAVE found a way for classes to have more than one active pet, i dont care.

Wolves are becoming uncontrollable guardians.

Edit: Please dont refer to Shamans as a pet class.. It hurts my eyes. Mages are more Pet Class than SHamans!

How would you prefer I frase it? Classes that can potentially summon pets? Also can I use "pet class" once people pick the primal elemental talent?

The no guardin thing is a huge change. Ele shamans have been complaining about fire elemental since forever and the response to them not changing it was, afaik, that the elemental would overlap for enhancement (a poor reasoning, considering you could just make it a talent). God...searing totem still in AND guardian wolves? Sad shaman, I'm shamad.

Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.